In utility networks, such as power, water, natural gas, etc., a data network is deployed alongside the utility equipment to manage and monitor operation of the utility equipment. In current utility networks, existing monitoring systems are not capable of providing sufficient information to troubleshoot failure points in the network. Current networks also make it difficult to locate potential where failures have previously occurred. Moreover, current networks do not facilitate testing of the network to determine whether it is ready to support a utility application traffic stream.